Recently, the general trend in designing electronic devices is toward small size, light weight and easy portability. Moreover, with increasing development of electronic industries, the internal circuitries of the electronic devices are gradually modularized. In other words, plural electronic components are integrated into a single circuit module. For example, a power module is one of the widely-used circuit modules. An example of the power module includes a DC-to-DC converter, a DC-to-AC converter, an AC-to-DC converter, or the like. After the electronic components (e.g. capacitors, resistors, inductors, transformers, diodes and transistors) are integrated as a power module, the power module may be installed on a motherboard or a system circuit board.
Nowadays, an embedded package structure is widely adopted because of many advantages such as smaller footprint, lower profile, higher power density, better thermal management, lower electrical noise and large-scale packaging solution.
For example, a conventional embedded package structure was disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,461,689. For precisely embedding an electronic component within a substrate, a metallic frame is formed on a surface of the substrate. The metallic frame is arranged around the periphery of an opening that is configured for embedding the electronic component. Consequently, the shape of the opening by laser ablation is controlled through the metallic frame. Since it is necessary to additionally form the metallic frame on the substrate, the conventional embedded package structure is not cost-effective.
Moreover, while the electronic component is disposed within the opening of the substrate of the conventional embedded package structure, the electronic component will be attached to the substrate using conductive or non-conductive paste, which is not cost efficient.
Therefore, there is a need of providing an improved packaging process in order to eliminate the above drawbacks.